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Chapter 4: The Archaeological
Context
Typically, one special feature of
Palaeolithic sanctuaries is the scarcity of objects made of stone and
bone. This is true of several recently discovered and well-protected
sires, including Cosquer (Bouches-du-Rhone), Chauvet (Ardoche) and
Cussac (Dordogne), and cannot therefore be attributed to vandalism.
Lascaux is an exception to the rule, however, and is noteworthy for both
the relative quantity and the specific nature of the material found
there.
Portable
Objects
After the discovery of the Lascaux Cave,
objects were found on the floor and the slopes of the walls,
highlighting how little sedimentation has taken place in the cave since
the Palaeolithic. The portable objects left behind by Palaeolithic man
are not always easy to find, however. In a few areas of the cave, such
as the entrance zone, certain processes have affected the ancient ground
surface and hidden any archaeological remains.
Roof collapse has been a key factor in
the entrance zone. According to Andre Glory, there have been two
major episodes of destabilization there. Variations in temperature
caused the walls and the ceiling over the first few metres of the
entrance to deteriorate further to different degrees ranging from a few
flakes to the collapse of blocks of rock. As we have seen, the movement
of slope deposits also played a part in its infilling. Another factor is
linked to the water collected in the marly layer above the entrance. The
flow of this water, directed towards the cave interior by the slope of
the cone of scree, disturbed the distribution of archaeological remains
lying along its route and deposited a thick layer of calcite on two
thirds of the floor, from the Hall of the Bulls to the Mondmilch Gallery
and, to a lesser extent, towards the Axial Gallery. Another factor lies
in the peculiar configuration of the galleries at the junction of the
Apse and the Great Fissure. Before it was modified, the sandy-clay floor
formed a plug between the two walls overhanging the Shaft. Small
variations in humidity led to its continuous and regular disintegration,
and the detached material progressively covered the archaeological
floors at the foot of the Shaft Scene, 5 metres below.
There are few surviving records of the
exact locations of archaeological finds in the early days. After
the Second World War, however, as access to the cave was being improved
for tourists, various excavations were conducted. Henri Bteuil, Severin
Blanc and Andre Glory were the only ones to carry out excavations there
in line with the scientific norms of the time. Breuil and Blanc
undertook a study of the Shaft in 1949, but between 1952 and 1963 Glory
made extensive records of excavations in the whole cave. In the early
1960s, Glory oversaw the installation of an air-conditioning system,
which was designed to extract air from various parts of the site - at
the foot of the panel of the Upside-down Horse, for example, and at the
entrances to the Nave and the Mondmilch Gallery. Work for the
air-conditioning system entailed burying sheeting 60 centimetres in
diameter 80 centimetres deep, and Glory was thus able to conduct a
sample excavation of the entrance zone.
From the data collected during these
excavations and their subsequent analysis, it would appear that Lascaux
was visited by humans on three occasions during the Upper Palaeolithic.
A few rare fragments of charcoal, the oldest proof of human presence,
were found in the Passageway, the Nave and the Shaft, indicating that
the initial visits were brief. A relatively large number of very diverse
objects, dating from the same time as the parietal art, are attributed
to a second occupation of the site. The purpose of many of the objects
found remains unclear. Some were used for lighting or to decorate the
walls. Others appear to have been for everyday use, such as jewelry,
various tools and fragments of reindeer or red deer bone. Evidence for
the third, most recent period of human use is only found in the first
part of the cave on the scree, but it can also be seen in the calcited
pools of the Passageway and directly below the Upside-down Horse. It
seems that several people occupied the entrance during the Holocene.
Rare traces of charcoal are the only evidence of this stay, and it is
unclear whether these people penetrated into the sanctuary. The
fragments found in the deeper parts of the cave could very well have
been transported there by runoff-water.
34 Block of haematite showing traces
of use over the entire surface, from the excavations by Andre Glory,
1959.
The criteria established to categorize
objects by use are sometimes tenuous. The portable objects linked to
drawing and painting include five grinding stones, three mortars and
twenty-three limestone and schist plaques. The surfaces of these objects
were stained by pigments, which enabled us to determine their function.
It is more difficult to identify the tools used for engraving, however,
and only very hard materials such as flint can be categorized with any
certainty. Analysis has shown that only a very limited number of the
pieces - bladelets, flakes, burins or scrapers - recovered at Lascaux
bore traces that could be attributed to engraving.
Studies carried out on the raw materials
used as colouring agents [12] led to the identification of a number of
categories, as well as providing some insight into their preparation and
utilization. These materials in the form of powder, small chunks (ill.
34) or plaques - are accretions of metallic oxides, essentially of iron
and manganese (ill. 35). Some traces have been interpreted as crayons.
Nevertheless, the extensive studies we have made of the paintings and
drawings themselves have never provided any evidence to support this
hypothesis, even in the initial phases of positioning the figures. In
effect, it looks like these marks were caused by scraping with flint
tools in order to break down the chunks into powder.
Various clay objects have also been found
at the site, although it seems unlikely that they could have served any
practical purpose in decorating the cave. Nonetheless, it is through
such inconspicuous objects that you sense the presence of the people -
adults, adolescents or children. In the shapes of these objects you can
see the traces of timeless actions over a plastic type of material. One
such object is a roughly rectangular block (ill. 36), which bears traces
of fingerprints.
35 Block of manganese.
36 Block of shaped clay, on
which several fingerprints were recorded.
37 Element of jewelry showing
the intentional perforation of the shell. This shell of Sipho, collected
from a beach, shows the existence at the time of exchange or movements
over significant distances.
Objects found during the excavations
by Henri Breuil and Severin Blanc, 1947-49. Portable objects, lithic
items and bones are rarely found in the context of parietal art. Here
too, Lascaux forms an exception. Three hundred and fifty pieces
were unearthed, including blades, backed bladelets, scrapers, burins and
flakes.
We also managed to identify several small
fragments of clay that looked like they had been idly compressed between
the thumb, index and middle finger of both hands.
The second assemblage might be related to
ritual activities and comprises many different types of objects,
including jewelry (mainly shells), spearheads, remains of bones and
lithic elements. There are sixteen shells (ill. 37) in total, most of
which are fossils, collected randomly at various points since the cave's
discovery. Three have perforations, indicating that they were used in
items of jewelry. Yvette Taborin [13] identified both their species and
their source: originating from Touraine and western France, they
demonstrate the existence of exchange patterns or movements of groups of
people over distances of several hundred kilometres. Among these
objects, there is also a small pebble of ovoid form. Someone has shaped
it to look like a marine gastropod, pointing one of its ends and
incising its lower surface to imitate the spirals of a shell.
If traces found on some elements of the
lithic assemblage (ill. 38) can be linked to engraving, other far more
pronounced ones may be associated with woodworking. Indeed, on several
occasions a number of relatively large charcoal fragments have been
collected in the cave. Furthermore. backed bladelets dominate, making up
70 of the 112 tools identified. They are closely associated with the
spearheads, especially in the Shaft and, to a lesser extent, in the Apse
and the Passageway. Analysis shows that only one of their two
longitudinal edges was sharp. The opposite edge and the ventral face of
some of these bladelets were coated in a pinkish organic substance -
mastic, which is rarely preserved. One of them revealed the slightly
concave imprint of the object it was mounted into, a wooden shaft or
baton of cervid antler. These objects therefore belong to the
group of complex composite tools.
A significant number of objects,
twenty-eight in total, are made of bone and antler, including intact or
fragmentary spearheads (ill. 39), three pins, one one-eyed needle and an
awl, as well as a worked antler spall and a modified reindeer antler
beam. The presence of these objects poses a problem in the underground
context. Nevertheless, the decorations on some of them confirm that they
are contemporary with the iconography of the walls. On one of the
fragments a succession of nested angular motifs is visible, identical to
those engraved on the flanks of the red deer and the horse in the Apse,
at the junction with the Passageway. This same motif is incised on the
handle of the pink sandstone lamp discovered in the Shaft.
Identical observations can be made regarding another intact spearhead
and on two other fragments, the characteristic cruciform signs of which
are repeated on the walls, particularly in the Axial Gallery (behind the
Great Black Bull) but also in the Passageway (on the rump of the horse
on the right wall, close to the Apse). On the same horse is engraved a
line of dashes in the form of parentheses, motifs resembling those found
on the reindeer antler beam. A final example is another spearhead, on
which the star-like decoration. composed of unconnected elements, links
it to figures on the walls notably the equid facing the abovementioned
horse.
39 Spearheads found during the
excavations by Henri Breuil and Severin Blanc, 1947-49, featuring
cruciform incisions or convergent nested elements
This catalogue of motifs - found in the
parietal works of art, the portable bone and antler assemblage, and the
material used for illumination - testify to the homogeneity of the
ensemble. Even before undertaking a more thorough analysis of the
parietal art, these observations provide an insight into the unique and
uniform character of this sanctuary.
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